Theater Review | 5th Avenue's "Drowsy Chaperone" is a zany sendup of musicals

Looking for messages in "The Drowsy Chaperone," the uniquely, charmingly zany musical at the 5th Avenue Theatre? You can spot maybe two.

Message 1: People who sit at home cherishing and endlessly replaying musty vinyl recordings of obscure Broadway musicals are pretty pathetic.

Message 2: Along with their prowess at playing hockey, making maple-leaf candy, and crafting fleece garments, Canadians are Olympic champs at theatrical satire.

The latter is well evident in "Drowsy Chaperone," a five-time, 2006 Tony Award honoree in its mirthful Seattle debut.

As for that first message: Any rabid musical-theater fan might relate, just a teensy bit, to the Man in Chair (as the program identifies him) — the wry, dowdy sad sack and endearing narrator of "Drowsy Chaperone."

Clad in a saggy sweater and baggy cords, and played with keen shlemiel's timing by Jonathan Crombie, Man is our guide through a show that astutely sends up and celebrates the frothy escapist stage musicals of the 1920s.

Bunkered in his drab studio apartment, this Man chats with us amiably — and fires off stinging barbs at recent Broadway fare perpetrated by Disney, Andrew Lloyd Webber, et al.

He much prefers the more innocent, campy "world full of color and music and glamour," a bygone Broadway used to specialize in.

How the show conjures that world for us is a nifty trick, ingeniously employed by the Tony-winning authors of "Chaperone," Bob Martin and Don McKellar. (Both are alums of the priceless Canadian TV series "Slings & Arrows," which spoofed Shakespearean regional theater.)

Crombie's Man regales us with the original cast album of "Drowsy Chaperone," an obscure Broadway bauble from 1928 about a glam star, Janet (Andrea Chamberlain) who has come to a country manse to marry an upper-class twit, Robert (Mark Ledbetter).

Soon "Drowsy Chaperone" materializes before us in all its spangles, sparkles, cornball humor and divine nonsense. And David Gallo's set design magically transforms that dingy walk-up into snazzy sets garnished by Gregg Barnes' dishy Roaring '20s costumes.

If the sight of a dorky leading man, blindfolded and on roller skates, singing the tune "Accident Waiting to Happen" to his fiancé (while she is disguised as a strange French girl) can't amuse you ... well, this might not be your gin fizz.

But there's much deliciously absurd fun in the preposterous show-within-a-show, and in Crombie's witty, eager deconstruction of it: number by number, actor by actor, dance by dance.

"Drowsy" also has a dandy real/fake score by Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison (full of Roaring '20s pep like "As We Stumble Along" and an orgy of non-p.c. Orientalia in "Message From a Nightengale.")

Snappily directed and choreographed by Casey Nicholaw, the touring cast is adept at singing, dancing, and gagging like stock characters from the glory days of the Gershwin Brothers, Fred Astaire, Cole Porter, Beatrice Lillie.

The fetching Chamberlain also gets to juggle plates, twirl batons and much more, in her blowout paean to insincere humility, "Show Off."

Alicia Irving shines as a slinky, boozy vamp who is the "chaperone" of the title. Ledbetter's madly tapping Robert partners neatly with Richard Vida's hotfooted George in "Cold Feets". And adorable Georgia Engel (Georgette in TV's "Mary Tyler Moore Show") excels at being adorable.

There are some snags. The creaky vaudeville-style comedy routines get excessive, like those with Dale Hensley as the insufferable Latin Lover buffoon, Aldolpho.

But for most of its two hours (no intermission) "Drowsy" is grand, smart, silly fun with a twinge or two of pity for that reclusive fan. Hey, Man — whatever gets you through the night.

Misha Berson: mberson@seattletimes.com